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LIC and Greenpoint

Long Island City

Transferring itself is not the source of my complaints; that toxic wellspring is the waiting. I would rather not be in this train, waiting for it to move. Even in my office, as I sift through the real estate market statistics and prepare investment recommendations, I am waiting for more statistics to come in. My black suit solidifies on me into a stiff shape as I sit and write and wait. So being asked to do some financial field-work – even if it is just visiting a client – actually enlivened me today, and the extra transfer from the E to the G train here at Court Square was an interesting experience in and of itself. The long walkway is being renovated, but it remains well-lit and adorned with a mosaic of unraveling, orange branches. Only now there is the waiting.

Apparently, Court Square is the northern terminus of the G, so it must stand here for at least ten minutes until another train arrives to take its place. Another transferring occurs, but this time one of roles. These are simple roles – the trains will simply exchange functions of motion and stagnation – but I see the greater urban shifts going on where I usually get onto the G in the south. For at Hoyt-Schemeron, the link to my bank via the A, I see more and more well-dressed blacks headed to their own offices, and I fear that their influence might impede our expansionary policies.

Certainly I sympathize with those in poorer neighborhoods who dream of modern apartment buildings, and certainly I, an appreciator of art, am not that avaricious banker expounded by the media, but I do need to seek the profit. I found it here in Long Island City; skyscrapers have risen and warehouses been transformed into flats here, and they in turn have begotten parks, which in turn improve the community. The industrial complexes that once polluted Long Island City have evolved into cultural – and profitable – districts because of our development.

And there is the other G train; mine should depart shortly. I recognize the language humming in the air; one of my coworkers sometimes shouts in Polish into the telephone so that we will not understand him. These Polish commuters are all undoubtedly coming from Greenpoint, just two stops from here on the G. That neighborhood too was once an industrial relic…